ed’s let­ter

The River Der­went has a mes­meris­ing qual­ity that draws many of us in reg­u­larly, but for the past five years it has fix­ated artists David Stephen­son and Martin Walch. The pair recorded a re­mark­able 2.5 mil­lion images of the river as part of a project on show now at the Tas­ma­nian Mu­seum and Art Gallery. In our cover story, the men share their ad­ven­tures along the river that de­fines Ho­bart and is a huge part of our ev­ery­day lives. “It’s the source of life, isn’t it,” Walch says. “It’s hard not to sound a lit­tle bit cos­mic, be­cause it’s a re­ally big sys­tem that keeps a lot of things alive. With­out it we’d be much poorer.” Also this week, we get all alert and nervy over caf­feine. Is it good or bad for us? How much is too much? Why is cof­fee so loved that 500 bil­lion cups of it are drunk world­wide each year? And would we be bet­ter off tak­ing power naps at work rather than try­ing to su­per-charge our way through the day with in­stant, es­presso and latte?